Rain, Rain, Go AWAY!

Odometer: 65,380
Glacier National Park to Swift Current, Saskatchewan
Price of gas: $4.49 (Near Glacier on the eastside. Whoa!)

The wind started about 4:30 this morning. Stiff, I finally checked the time at 5:20. Forty minutes of lying still, uncomfortable, trying to convince myself to go back to sleep. John Denver’s, “On the Road” stuck in my head. The wind wasn't bad, and it wasn’t cold, but it’s no fun waiting for quiet hours to be over. Just after 6 I got up and started breaking camp as quietly as I could. I used the wind gusts for cover. As I was folding up the last part of my tent, rain drops started to fall.

It was only 6:30, but I went looking for breakfast. I decided to stop in at Many Glaciers – “little Switzerland” – and did find a hot breakfast. Talked to a couple Czechs working as wait staff. It was about 42 degrees and cloudy, still spitting rain. Right, enough of this. No weather for hiking. I had asked the camp host last night about what I might find north and east of Glacier (in Canada) and he suggested the “Head Smashed In” buffalo jump. Back in the day, in the fall, Indian tribes would band together and run a buffalo herd off a cliff… food to get you through winter. Some part of me finds it awful, but it’s not like you could go down to the supermarket and get food at the time. It’s actually very clever and goodness knows they used everything. I told myself I’d take other people’s advice, and it was something I would not otherwise have done.



That's the view from the jump, and was probably the best weather I saw all day... typical of the scenery, too. Head Smashed In, by the way, refers to an Indian who stood a bit too close to the falling herd one day - not to the buffaloes who went over the cliff.

As I headed east, it started raining in earnest… and rained, and rained, and rained. Man, I thought I left Washington behind. I stopped in Lethbridge at the visitor center and said, “I know this isn’t your normal request, but where can I get a haircut?” I might have asked about going to Mars. “Well, Lethbridge is quite a religious town, and today is Sunday…” Ultimately they directed me to a place, but it had a 3-hour wait. Moving on…



I got to Medicine Hat, Alberta, and asked them what there might be between Medicine Hat and Swift Current. (side note: I love town mottos. Medicine Hat is, “The Gas City”, while Swift Current is, “Where life makes sense.” Sure it does!) They had no real suggestions – well, they did, but the area was outdoors and it was raining, raining, raining. They did, however, have free wi-fi, so I hooked up and cleared my inbox. Yay! Of course, this also drags me back to reality a bit… but there were some things left unfinished, and so they need to be dealt with.

I motored on to Saskatchewan, stopped in another visitor center. Woman was most helpful and gave me some good ideas about what to do tomorrow; also hooked me up with an accommodations guide. I called ahead to the Comfort Inn in Swift Current. Tomorrow is Labour Day here in Canada as well… I think they must have copied us, but neither the gal at the visitor center nor I knew who started it first.

Made it to Swift Current about 6 p.m. So grateful to have a shower and cell phone reception. Talked to mom and to Aunt Kathy. Went out to get dinner, and of course, the rain has stopped. Tomorrow is supposed to be somewhat nicer, but another slog day en route to International Falls, MN. On the upside, I can stop in Moose Jaw, Regina, and Brandon, MB, prior to going through Winnipeg on … umm… whatever day of the week the day after tomorrow is.

Aging, Animals, Awestruck

Odometer: 65,323
Fish Creek to St. Mary’s – over Logan Pass verrrry slowly.

Today was the most phenomenal day I’ve had in a long time. My legs are killing me (that’s the aging part) but the animals and awestruck were more than worth it.

Chris and I took off from Fish Creek a little after 9 this morning. As we’d already done the part of Going-to-the-Sun road that went to Avalanche Creek, the first 18 miles of the 30 to Logan Pass were smooth. Then we started stopping for photos… mountains, waterfalls, auto turn-outs – Oh My! There were a lot of stops. Some very beautiful places, especially looking down the valley just below Logan Pass. From what we learned from Ranger Tegan, glaciers carved those valleys. They indeed must have been massive beasts to do that. Amazing, amazing, amazing.





We made it to just below Logan pass at another turn-out – more waterfalls, more views!





I listened in on a guide talking about the Garden Wall hike. This is a 12-mile hike, almost entirely downhill, but has a ridge that is about 3 feet wide with a very large drop-off at points. Chris has some fear of heights and I’m probably just about there as well. We had debated doing it tomorrow, but tomorrow is supposed to be a high of 50 and potential snow showers over 5500 feet. Logan Pass is at 6600 feet. Great! My legs are so achy I’m not sure I could do it tomorrow, but anyway, after getting some information from different folks, we decided to bag that hike. Still, the guide said it is rated the #2 hike in America by backpacker magazine, so some day I will have to go back.

We tried to go up to Logan Pass to park, but parking was so bad we went back to this lower point. Walking up to Logan Pass, we saw mountain goats! Mountain goats! Five of them. So cool. Little did we know how much better it would get. We were hungry – yes, it was about noon already – so we walked back to the car and got food. By now parking was pretty much packed in, so we were lucky to get spots in the area. We walked back up and took the Hidden Lake trail. Along the way we saw more goats, then a big horn ram, and then more goats riiiiiiggghhhttt next to the trail.





So cool. A mama and baby no less!



That was amazing. The hike was short but through true alpine meadow, and there are still lots of flowers in bloom, which was lovely to see. I can’t do them justice, so I stuck to the large vistas, but I love the flowers. The Hidden Lake overlook was – as was so much of the day – awe-inspiring. You can see the peak of Sperry Glacier, Hidden Lake, more mountains… Thus far on the west side, I was pleased, but being from Washington not overwhelmed. Today at Logan Pass I was pretty awestruck. It’s a phenomenal landscape.





We finally started down close to 4 p.m. The first 1-2 miles was terrifying – narrow road, under construction, loose gravel, major drop-off if you screw up. I honestly couldn’t go over 30. But after those few miles, there’s a barrier, and forest, and it got easier. We did a few more photo stops, but I’d reached my saturation point and eventually left Chris to go check into my campsite.





St. Mary’s is nowhere near as nice as Fish Creek… sigh… but at least it’s only for one night. There’s some talk of a thunderstorm tonight, but thus far it has been very nice today, and the later forecast that I saw just said, “chance of rain.” So I’m hoping to get through the night. Tomorrow I’ll likely stop in, at least, to Many Glacier, and then head for the border. I’ve decided I’m taking the Canada route… a few more towns on the way, not feeling quite so isolated. There just isn’t much in North Dakota.

Chris decided to head up to Waterton tonight – with the snow forecast (more for the day after tomorrow than tomorrow) that may be a mistake, but Glacier has been amazing and I think it’s what I’d do too. We parted at the St. Mary’s visitor center – I’m very glad he’s been along. I would only have tapped the surface today if he hadn’t been saying, “Let’s go do this hike, let’s stop here for photos…” Saw some very cool things I wouldn’t have seen if he hadn’t been along.

But for now, I hurt… my lower legs are really aching. Calves tight, left Achilles still painful… when did this happen? Very annoying.

I’m looking tomorrow to get to Swift Current in Saskatchewan, Canada – I might not cross North Dakota off the list, but I will hit several Canadian provinces I haven’t been to before. Hopefully I can hook up to the Internet and post this along with some photos.

Sunshine and Climbs

Odometer: 65,384
Glacier National Park

The day starts with the first generator at 7 a.m. I think we’re the only tents in our section of the campground; everyone else is RV. I am struck by my good fortune: completely at random, I met someone who has similar ideas about hikes to me (meaning not too long and not too strenuous) and is traveling for similar reasons. One of my goals for this trip was to get to know people and talk to them, and Chris has been great. Insta-travel buddy, and what do you know, we get along.
The night was relatively warm – an easy 10 degrees warmer than the night before – and the day looks to be clearing, so we decide to head up Apgar pass. It’s not a very long trek, 3.3 miles one way, but it is 1800 feet of elevation gain to Avalanche Creek’s 500.

We start out pretty nervous about bears, and not very far in hear an animal break a branch. We also see scat, including some with berries, though it seems far too small to be a bear’s. We decided to keep going, and eventually some other hikers catch up with us, so we feel better about the bears. In all, we see about 20 people along the trail, so we’re considerably more relaxed about bears on the way down than the way up. The hike goes up to a fire lookout – and all around you can see the burned forest from the 1994 fire (and 2003 fire?) – but the view from the top is really spectacular.






The day is clearing fine and is even a bit hot (albeit windy) by the time we reach the top. Coming down is nearly as hard as going up. My knees don’t work like they used to, and I forgot my trekking poles again. Auuugh! But certainly coming down is faster and we tease the people coming up about the 9 miles to go, then reassure them the view is really worth it. Chris has chocolate chip cookies in his car, so we eat a couple of those when we’re back.

We have separate afternoon plans: I desperately want a shower – especially after the sweaty hike – and Chris wants to go back to Bowman Lake to do more photography. While he’s off there, I do a little laundry and shower and poke around both West Glacier (a little bit of a tourist town just outside the park entrance) and Apgar Village (get Mahina a book about pikas) and then reorganize my car and hang out by the campsite, waiting for Chris to get back to go to dinner. It’s verrrry nice to be clean.

Looking over the maps, it appears likely we’ll use a transfer to go to a different campsite tomorrow (rising sun?) and so some light hikes, and then I’d like to try to do the Garden Wall hike on Sunday – 12 miles, but mostly downhill. Monday I plan to take off, and it looks like I’ll head up Canada way to get across to International Falls and Voyageurs. Winnipeg is a greater lure than North Dakota? It’s so hard to choose.

Chris comes back about 7:20 and we head out for pizza. The pizza place we want to try doesn't serve pizza anymore ("we should change that sign"), but they steer us to the Glacier Grill, which has good pizza and great salads. En route back we pull into the picnic area of Fish Creek to sit on the shore and stare up at the stars. It's so clear you can see most of the Milky Way. I can't quite relax as it's dark, dark, dark and there's random noises everywhere. There haven't been any bears yet, but I really wonder how someone backpacks this in comfort: I'd be nervous about the food I'd be carrying with me. Anyway. It's a gorgeous evening, and Chris calls it a "carpe diem" moment. It is. Finally we head for the campground and to sleep.

The plan is working

Odometer: 65,345
Price of gas: $3.90
Glacier National Park

With the cold night, I’m up early, about 6:45. Earlier than the generators can get started (7 a.m.) I fix my oatmeal, contemplate the sky – will it clear? – it looks promising, but I’m not sure. About 8 I head for the camp check in station and get that done, since the night before it was closed when I came in. Then I go to Apgar Village and check in at the ranger station. Guy in front of me says, “It’s my first time here and I’m hiking by myself. Where can I go that I don’t have to worry about bears?” I say, “Me too!” The lady laughs and says we should hike together. She tells us there’s a ranger-guided hike of Avalanche Lake, which is what I had been considering anyway, so I’m sold.

I drive on up, meet up with many folks, including my ranger-station encounter, and a volunteer ranger named Tegan, who is a master’s student of Geology at BYU. She does a terrific job of walking us through the geology of Glacier and the time frames – from 1.5 billion years ago up to about 6,000 years ago when the glaciers we have today began to form (and are now expected to be gone by 2020, already revised upward from 2030). It’s not a long hike – about 2.3 miles up – but we take about 2 or 2 ½ hours to get there.



It’s good, because the hike is mainly through forest and so pointing out details along the way really helps my appreciation of where I am. When we finally get to Avalanche Lake, it is quite beautiful: a mountain lake with peaks on all sides around it.



I get to know my ranger-station friend along the way, whose name is Chris, and we decide to finish hiking around the lake together, getting some pictures from the opposite shore. We head back down, chatting along the way.



He’s from Michigan and has a sister in Spokane that he spent a few days with before driving up here. He’s clearly an outdoorsy kind of guy – most of his vacations are set up to go somewhere natural. Like me, he’s traveling solo, and like me, would like a hiking buddy. I invite him to share my campsite (but not my tent) as you can have two tents and two vehicles on a site.

After Chris pitches his tent, we head out to the northwest corner of the site, an area called Bowman lake. I’m a little nervous about this, but Chris resonates “Midwestern goodness” and I think I’ll be okay. We travel paved and non-paved roads up to Polebridge, then go to Bowman Lake, which is glorious, and soooooo quiet. Nothing around for miles.



Until people start showing up… We try to wait out the light to see if it will do a better job of illuminating the mountains ringing the far shore, but the sun is sinking behind a bank of clouds and it looks like we’re out of luck. It does seem finally to be clearing up and warming up, thankfully, but there’s still clouds around. Chris and I head for dinner in Columbia Falls to a random Mexican place, and the evening is complete.

“People do this voluntarily?”

Odometer: 64,806
Price of gas: $3.90
Kennewick to Glacier
REI stores visited: 2 (Spokane)

Today was a slog. Blech! I left Kennewick around 8 a.m. – I really had a ball with Paul, that was a great way to kick off a trip. So much so I think I’ll be back on the night of the 18th, and called up Mike Mai – the third part of our junior high triumvirate – to come down as well. Fun…

Anyway, from there it is a deeply boring drive to Spokane, and from Spokane a deeply boring drive to Newport, WA. It’s vaguely pretty, but in a very open-land and lots of brown tones kind of way.


I did get to visit another REI store:


In Newport I had to stop to interview candidate #3 of our analyst candidates. I also got some lunch. I remember Newport as more progressive than it appeared today, but it was a good stop… chance to stretch my legs, decent deli, etc. Drove on to Sandpoint, ID, and talked to Carolyn for a while about the analyst, as I have no way to transmit a report back. From there, I needed to drive: it’s a fair way to Glacier still, and it’s slow roads. The weather is not encouraging – cloudy, cold. Also deeply boring driving. There’s just not much out there. Kalispell is the first place you get to with a serious population – at least serious enough to support every fast food chain known to man, and have a Unitarian church, so it’s got to be fairly large – and then it’s still close to an hour to get to Glacier.

With the time change, it’s about 7:30 when I get into my campsite, and light is fading. I hustle to get my tent set up, and just as I finish the tent, rain starts plunking down. I get the rain tarp on, then decide to move my tent off the nicely set up flat area they have back a bit more to the woods. It’ll drip longer, but hopefully shield some of the rain from coming down in the first place. It is COLD. They have closed Logan Pass due to snow; where I am, it’s easily in the 40s and definitely a chill edge to the wind. I bless all the gear I’ve ever bought from REI. It’s enough, but not by much. I hunker down – 8:30 seems a good bedtime, as I’m tucked out – and head to sleep. People do this voluntarily?

Leaving is always harder than it looks.

Odometer: 64,592 miles
Price of gas: $3.75
Bonney Lake, WA to Kennewick, WA
REI stores visited: 1 (Kennewick)

The universe was listening in this morning as I got ready to leave… a mile down the road, I thought, “bike!” Then as I was at home, the radio was playing an interview with Ed Viesturs, and I thought, “Trekking poles!” Finally, I had a conversation with my uncle about staying with him, and he said, “Do you have your passport?” Mmm, good call. I had to go into work for an hour to interview a candidate for the new analyst position, so I was able to scoot past home again on my way out and pick up all the things I’d forgotten. But the interview ran long, I had to stop at the post office on my way out, stopped for food… finally, forward progress on 410 at about 1:30 in the afternoon. Everything I did helped leave my life behind, but I still feel like I’m carrying home with me a bit.

It’s said there’s two seasons in Washington: rainy and road construction. The latter was definitely on display yesterday, even as the mountain was fairly hidden. Nothing too onerous, though one stop was long enough to read much of the paper. No snow over the pass, so while it’s beautiful in any season, this is probably the least beautiful time of year. The scenery can be fairly dry and brown.

At least there’s trees, however, while once you hit the east side of the state, it is brown and lacking in trees as far as you can see. Great agricultural land over here, but the green is only where it’s irrigated. I didn’t stop in Naches or Yakima… felt like I needed to keep going and get to Paul’s house, as I was already well late. Felt annoyed that I felt I needed to keep a schedule.

I needed a swiss army knife, which is a good enough reason as any to stop at the very tiny REI here…

that, and my odds of being back here much are slim. I am visiting my friend Paul while here, with whom I went to junior high and high school. He lives less than a mile from the REI, so it worked out quite well. He’s got a great house here in Kennewick, and a highly personable cat named Scotty. Within minutes we were busy giving each other flak, in a 7th grade sort of way, but laughter and friendship are great for shifting perspective and leaving home behind. It is warm but not hot here. We went to a tasty Taco Cart in “El Pasco,” as Paul calls it, and then for a walk that included ice cream. Both of us were exhausted – Paul goes to work for 6 a.m. – so it was not a late night. Scotty visited me with a 5:30 wake-up call (jumps in the window, checks out the window shade – hey, what does this cord do? Whack! Whack! Whack!) and is keeping me company as I write.

Today is onward to Glacier: still an interview to do and then hopefully I can close the book on work and the UUs and everything else for a few weeks.

Every great road trip...

...begins with a soundtrack, of course.

One must have appropriate music for a road trip. While I'm just now listening through my selections, I thought I'd bring up the highlights. Must put on CD for trip; am leaving iPod & laptop at home, I think. Which means I don't know how often I'll get to update, but I'll try at least once a week. Low-tech trip, thank goodness.

Leaving songs:

"Ramblin' Man", Allman Brothers
"Truckin'", Grateful Dead
"Get out the Map", Indigo Girls
"Gone Daddy Gone", Violent Femmes
"Road Buddy", Dar Williams

Things you might see along the way:
"America", Simon & Garfunkel
"Iowa (Traveling III)", Dar Williams
"East to the West", Michael Franti
"In a big country", Big Country
"Amber Waves", Tori Amos
"I am a town" Mary-Chapin Carpenter

Mood songs:
"Are you out there? " Dar Williams
"You rise and meet the day", Dar Williams
"The End of the Summer", Dar Williams. Why yes, she's a good road buddy.
"Life less ordinary", Carbon Leaf. Bonus point: album is call Indian Summer.
"Come a long way", Michelle Shocked
"Freedom", Amos Lee
"Have you ever", Brandi Carlisle
"This is the world calling", Bob Geldof
"Golden Days", The Damnwells

Coming home:
"Long way Home", Norah Jones
"Almost home" Mary-Chapin Carpenter

There's lots more, but you get the idea.

One week and I head out!! Can't wait.

Mayhem

Hmm. I did know, heading into these two weeks, that there would be A LOT going on:

• 3 reports
• 2 questionnaires
• 2 projects to setup
• 1 to manage
• 1 to finish (mostly done)
• Summer Con
• Speech to give (done)

Yeah, hey, no wonder I'm not sleeping at night.

Saw my new doctor last week, and she said my old clinic is a mess and is in serious financial trouble. She left them - not specifically my clinic, but the next one over, and she knows the folks in both places. Hmm, that explains a lot.

Anyway. A week from tomorrow I am done with work; 5 days after that I am on the road! Woo-hoo!